Day 4-Caen, France

Well, today was an early start! We were up and out of the ferry by 5:45 am and on the beach in France! Classic french style breakfast of croissant and coffee...then off to the Normandy American Cemetary. This cemetary is American/French run in honor of the 9500 Americans that gave their lives in the D Day invasion. This museum/cemetary was breathtaking...sombering and overwhelming. Upon entering, people are able to look up any family members that may have been buried at the cemetary and then the staff will perform a special ceremony over the grave if they discover your relative there. We had an hour to tour the site, and take pictures. I will try to post one to this blog if it will upload...

From the Normandy cemetary, we went to Saint Laurent se mer where we had a memorial with the mayor of the town at Omaha Beach. This was beyond moving. THe mayor spoke at length about the United States role in the D Day invasion and how we saved Europe from Hitler. There was a flag raising ceremony with each flag of the ccountries that helped represented. This was so incredibly moving...i bawled like a baby for the anthem. The best part of the flag raising was that any student that had a relative that died or participated the war was able to raise the flags.

We had lunch on the beach and then headed to Caen where the WWII museum is located. We went through the museum for 2.5 hours. I will not lie, we did not board the ferry the night before until 11 pm and did not sleep til at least 12. Up by 4 made for a LONG two and a half hours through the museum.

Once we finished the tour, we headed into Paris at dusk and went directly to the hotel. We all went silently to bed and slept well! Tomorrow, the Louvre!!!! Woo Hoo:)

Til Then,
Thea